Second Avenue Subway

Marx Brothers Playground Judicial Appeal

In 2017, AvalonBay Developers proposed an out of context 710-foot residential tower on the Marx Brothers Playground site.

CIVITAS, along with Carnegie Hill Neighbors, Municipal Arts Society, Friends of the Upper East Side Historic District, Mr. Diego Barberena and Mr. C. Edward Harrison, filed a lawsuit to protect parks that are also used by schools in the City of New York.

CIVITAS believes that parks do not have development rights and Marx Brothers Joint Operated Playground is a public park per state statute. CIVITAS has contacted the Governor and State Parks Commissioner regarding the legal status of Marx Brothers Playground.

The City of New York includes Joint Operated Playgrounds in their calculations of the total number of parks and acres of parks citywide.

CIVITAS believes that the developer misrepresented the park’s status during the public review process. This resulted in an illegal transfer of development rights from the park to the building.

This precedent will place more than 250 playgrounds at risk across NYC.

CIVITAS has a longstanding advocacy record of fighting over development, out of context development, access to public parks, and transparency to the public.Click here to read more.

Rendering of 321 East 96th Street, Source: This East Side Map of NYC’s JOPs, Source: MAS

Overdevelopment on the Upper East Side

In recent years, the Upper East Side has seen the development of several high-rise buildings that are not in scale or architecturally sympathetic to our neighborhood’s existing built character. In the early 1980’s the Upper East Side was rezoned, allowing higher density development on the avenues within a contextual building envelope that had specific street-wall requirements and height limits. However, advances in high-rise building construction, higher floor-to-floor heights, the use of as-of-right zoning lot mergers to transfer unused development rights to generate more floor area on development sites, and BSA zoning variances have produced unforeseen consequences and challenges to our community’s underlying zoning regulations. To read more, please click here.

If you would like to read CIVITAS’ full C1-9X Proposal, the link is provided:

The East and Harlem River Esplanade Waterfront Park is an under-appreciated asset for passive and active recreation. While CIVITAS is pursuing work to improve the Esplanade both south of Gracie Mansion and north of 125th Street, its focus has been on a stretch of the Esplanade from 90th to 125th Streets that has been severely under-maintained. At the same time, with the completion of the first phase of the Second Avenue subway and the prospect for the second phase extending to 125th Street, the growing population east of Lexington Avenue could benefit from an improved waterfront.